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Cadavra

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20-Aug-2017
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11-Jan-2024
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Post
#1431768
Topic
What's your take on Emperor Palpatine being brought back for The Rise of Skywalker?
Time

The “HOW Palpatine came back” isn’t important to the story - the fact that Palpatine SURVIVED is.

And facts require a logical basis in the story itself. This is Fiction Writing 101.

I advise you to re-watch that scene. It’s Beru who says that, and Owen says that is what he’s afraid of.

Which….is all I said.

Obi-Wan was sad that Luke’s father - a good friend - was killed by Vader […] is about Luke leaving and how Owen can’t accept that - this implies he didn’t want Luke’s father to leave Tatooine as well and avoid being a farmer like himself (Owen) and Beru.

Of course those are the initial, superficial meanings of both scenes. That’s not the point. The point is that the scenes also have hooks and hints at something more which fit perfectly with the revelation that Vader is Anakin, regardless of whether that was the original intention.

Except Palpatine’s return DOES enrich the ST. He’s been the mastermind all this time from the start, pulling the strings behind [etc.]

I do not find anything in Episodes VII or VIII more interesting when viewed in the context of Palpatine being above Snoke and by extension everything else.

Just a point, Rey already deals with her parents believing she’s worthless in TLJ - she doesn’t care about them anymore, and now has the Resistance become her newfound family who’ll give her validation and belonging.

That’s exactly my point — the question of Rey’s family already got a satisfying resolution in VIII, and in a proper Episode IX that resolution could have informed her struggle as the story moved onto dealing with the stage that had been set for the final phase of the war. Instead of letting that resolution stand on its own, Abrams and Terrio felt the need to reopen the case, cramming an all-new (and much more repetitive) family drama into a final chapter that was already overstuffed with half-baked ideas and dangling threads.

On that topic, Rey DOESN’T deal with two (I’m assuming the other one is “They were nobody”) - she deals with ONE. When she says her parents were nobody, it meant they had no actual reason to care about her - they hated her, they threw her away like garbage, they thought she was WORTHLESS.

Huh? Of course she deals with two (contradictory) revelations: “they were random bums who sold her for drinking money,” and “they were heroic relatives of the Emperor who sacrificed themselves to protect her.”

Yes, his body’s literally decaying and has to use a life support machine, and the Sith clearly haven’t returned by TRoS (“The Sith are reborn, the Jedi are dead!” “Nothing will stop the return of the Sith!”). The prophecy is that Anakin would destroy the Sith - and he did.

He isn’t dead. He’s a Sith. Through him the Sith are active and powerful enough to have been — in your words — “pulling the strings behind Snoke, Kylo Ren, the First Order, Luke’s exile, the destruction of his Jedi Order and the bridging of Rey and Kylo Ren’s minds.” The state of his physical body doesn’t change any of that.

I already explained why this is wrong.

And that explanation doesn’t convince me. Sorry, but it doesn’t.

I’m pointing out your hypocrisy, you dislike Palpatine’s undoing of the Chosen One yet literally reinforced the undoing of the OT heroes’ accomplishments.

First, I didn’t say I disliked undoing the prophecy, and in fact I laid out ideas for how undoing the prophecy could have been done well. What I said was I didn’t like TROS’s failure to deal with the significance of undoing the prophecy.

Second, you’re quoting from one of two alternate ST ideas I tossed out in that thread — and one I specifically said was a less ambitious option than the one that would have been my own ideal.

But Palpatine still essentially committed suicide, he was the one who started shooting lightning in the first place - if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been killed. If the same thing happened between him and Vader in RotJ, he WOULDN’T have survived.

There’s that word “essentially” again. Even if that was the writers’ intention, the fact that Rey effectively gets off on a technicality despite the fact that she consciously acted toward the very outcome she was told would assure his victory—killing Palpatine—makes it all the sillier. It’s like some bizarre space-fantasy inversion of suicide-by-cop.

First off, it’s an INFERENCE. It doesn’t have to be spelled out to you.

“Inference” is not a magic word that papers over shoddy plot construction. Good stories are not fill-in-the-blank activity books.

Secondly, all the Knights of Ren are dead, there was no indication he knew any of them were Force-sensitive, and he certainly didn’t know where they were specifically at even before their deaths.

They weren’t dead in the years between Kylo becoming their master and the Battle of Exegol. They show up on Exegol to do his bidding. If they and Kylo served Snoke, Palpatine could have manipulated Snoke to send one his way. And “master of the Knights of Ren” wouldn’t be a very impressive title for Kylo if they were just normal, no-Force thugs.

Thirdly, there was no indication any of his cultists were Force-sensitive.

See, “odds are at least a few people among thousands upon thousands of dark Force worshippers can use the Force” actually IS a logical, acceptable inference based on existing information and common sense.

Lastly, he targeted Rey and then Ben because she was his granddaughter (and he’s foreseen what she’d become) and Ben was the Chosen One’s grandson.

The idea that only a Force user that powerful could contain a spirit as powerful as his would be an adequate explanation—except TROS didn’t use it. (I know, I know, “inference.”)

EDIT: One more point about Rey killing Palpatine. The plot device of something bad happening if a Jedi kills a Sith the wrong way (which Star Wars has used many times over the years) has never been about the mechanics or technicalities of the cause of death, but about the Jedi’s intentions and emotions behind the act, and the moral message they convey.

TROS takes this simple trope and reduces it to a matter of the rules of a brand-new supernatural power — rules which the movie never sees fit to share with the audience. Kill Sheev out of hatred for him? He gets your body. Kill Sheev out of love for your friends? He still gets your body. Kill Sheev by deflecting his lightning? (With no obvious distinction from the amount of lightning he pumped into Luke OR the amount of lightning Mace Windu reflected back at him.) He apparently DOESN’T get your body. Why? No idea!

If a Sith Lord’s own lightning cancels out the ultimate power of the Sith — something every Sith has apparently done since Darth Bane — then one might reasonably expect SOMEBODY in a thousand years to realize that maybe they should stop using lightning. It also makes Palpatine look kind of dumb that he keeps pouring on the juice as it comes back to hit him — although, to be fair, one can hardly blame the poor guy for not expecting Force lightning to suddenly behave differently than it behaved every other time it was used in the saga.

Post
#1431756
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Further, removing the dialogue doesn’t solve the problem of gathering such a large force so quickly. You would need added scenes to do that.

To clarify, I’m not proposing a better justification for assembling the fleet so quickly. I’m proposing eliminating the very idea that the fleet was assembled so quickly to begin with, but rather that it was already assembled by the time TROS begins. Poe’s lines are a hurdle to this change because, as one of the Resistance’s top leaders (and THE co-General by the time of the final battle), he would presumably have some idea of the fleet’s actual size.

Post
#1431731
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

The puppet show (which is incredible) builds up how Luke’s sacrifice has inspired the galaxy, but the dialogue I’m talking about suggests that the galaxy hasn’t been inspired and remains as hopeless as ever.

Beyond that, there’s the simple logistical problem. Even if the galaxy is receptive now, that’s a LOT of people and ships to find, recruit, prepare, and coordinate in just a couple hours of “send[ing] out a call for help for anybody listening.”

Post
#1431713
Topic
What's your take on Emperor Palpatine being brought back for The Rise of Skywalker?
Time

It is absolutely not fundamental, because it doesn’t actually progress the plot or change the characters in any meaningful way

Of course it changes a character in a meaningful way — Palpatine himself, from dead and gone to alive and threatening. And his being back IS the plot. It’s THE challenge of Episode IX.

“I am your father” had no set-up as well and, by your logic, makes ESB feel disjointed with ANH.

Not at all. First, even if Vader being Anakin hadn’t been decided when ANH was made, it’s still much clearer that there’s at least something more to the story than Obi-Wan first tells Luke—Obi-Wan looking visibly uncomfortable before he tells the lie, Owen telling Beru he’s afraid of Luke having too much of his father in him, etc. The ESB and TLJ reveals enrich what came before; the TROS reveal muddies it.

Second, “betrayed and murdered” is not framed as some huge, shocking revelation, and in fact it’s positioned at roughly the same point in Luke’s story that “my parents will come back for me” is positioned in Rey’s. “I am your father” is the shocking mid-point twist of the OT, just as “they sold you for drinking money” is for the ST. They come at roughly the same points in their respective trilogies, upending the assumptions each hero started with. Luke has the rest of his trilogy to figure out how to handle this one challenging revelation; Rey in effect has to come to terms with two, one after another.

That kind of upending is fine to do once in a three-part story; doing it multiple times with the exact same question for the exact same character within the same amount of story is just juvenile. It’s the sort of thing that gives comic books a reputation for convoluted long-term histories as new writers come in and mess with what their predecessors did, but stories with distinct beginnings, middles, and ends are supposed to be better than that.

Also, I endorse everything Knight of Kalee just said.

Palpatine is essentially dead until he rejuvenates himself with the dyad’s life energy

“Essentially dead”? Come on.

after that he is killed for good, fulfilling the prophecy once again.

Is it for good, though? There is absolutely nothing in the film itself that tells us why we should be confident this is the case.

And I see you’re fine with Luke failing to create the Jedi or stuff like that.

Huh? No I’m not. And I’m not sure what that has to do with this discussion.

Rey never killed Palpatine herself, she just reflected his lightning onto his face - he essentially committed suicide.

We could just as easily say that if Rey had swung when Palpatine wanted her to, it wouldn’t be her “killing Palpatine herself”; it would have been her lightsaber blade killing him. The tool is not the act, and does not change the intention or causality behind the act.

Palpatine has to be killed by another Force-sensitive in order for Sith essence transfer to even work in the first place. Why do you think he didn’t commit suicide or have a non-Force-sensitive kill him a long time ago?

Even if that’s how it was intended to work (which is not stated anywhere in the film), then presumably he could have transferred into one of the Knights of Ren. Or an able-bodied Exegol cultist (presumably at least some were Force-sensitive). Or had his underlings scour the galaxy for healthy young Force-sensitives.

Post
#1431692
Topic
Unusual <strong>Sequel Trilogy</strong> Radical Redux Ideas Thread
Time

I don’t want to derail this thread by relitigating something that has been argued about to death numerous times on multiple threads, so I’ll just point out that (a) “Rey Nobody” is shorthand for “no familial connection at all,” not just “no famous parents”; and (b) a retcon that hides behind “well TECHNICALLY…” is still a retcon.

Post
#1431633
Topic
Unusual <strong>Sequel Trilogy</strong> Radical Redux Ideas Thread
Time

Here’s a crazy thought for trying to make the Rey Palpatine reveal feel less like a contradiction that comes out of nowhere in TROS: what about cutting the “they were nobody” reveal out of TLJ?

I don’t know how well this could be executed, but maybe it would be possible to have Rey cut Kylo off before he has a chance to tell her, going from him teasing the truth straight to Rey reaching for the lightsaber? If this could be pulled off, viewers would come away from that scene thinking there still is an answer yet to be revealed, but it’s something so horrible that Rey can’t bear to face it at that point. Then the “your his granddaughter” scene would be a payoff worthy of such fears rather than a retcon undermining a previous revelation that had weight and significance all its own.

Disclaimer: personally I’m firmly in the Rey Nobody camp. But this idea popped into my head during a brainstorming kick, so I figured I’d toss it out for consideration, just in case it can help the Rey Palpatine concept be the best it can be.

Post
#1431631
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Apologies if this has been discussed already, but has any consideration been given to removing the implication that Lando and Chewie somehow managed to assemble the largest fleet we’ve ever seen, in a couple hours at most, in what the film strongly suggests is a 180-degree reversal of the dominant mood of the galaxy? Personally, I consider that and the dagger compass (which has already been brilliantly fixed in Ascendant) to be the two most logic- and suspension-of-disbelief-breaking moments in the entire Saga.

It seems to me that some dialogue cuts (ending Poe and Zorii’s heart-to-heart before the talk about thinking they’re alone/everyone giving up; then during the mission briefing scene cutting from Lando’s “That’s our chance” straight to the preparation montage & Finn’s “Leia never gave up…”) would be all it would take to let the audience infer that the fleet is the culmination of both the Resistance’s recruitment efforts in the year between TLJ & TROS and Luke’s sacrifice inspiring the galaxy (which of course Ascendant already strengthens in multiple ways), instead of something miraculously assembled at the last minute.

Post
#1431623
Topic
What's your take on Emperor Palpatine being brought back for The Rise of Skywalker?
Time

I am convinced Palpatine could have been resurrected for the Sequel Trilogy in an intelligent, narrative-serving way, but it would have required meeting four conditions:

  1. Explain how in the film itself. Audiences saw him fall down a pit and explode in a moon-sized station that also exploded minutes later; if you’re going to tell audiences that wasn’t his end after all, then audiences are entitled to be satisfied that it makes sense before the credits roll. Passing off a question this fundamental to inference – in effect making audiences do homework simply to understand the story (whether in the form of reading supplemental material or piecing together a headcanon explanation themselves) – is just sloppy, lazy storytelling that disrespects the audience.

  2. Reveal him early enough that he feels like he fits in the trilogy as a whole. My preference would be to at the very least hint at him in VII, but he would’ve had to be revealed no later than VIII. But by Episode IX, it was too late to do it without making the ST feel disjointed. Lucasfilm desperately needed an adult in the room to give Palpatine a hard veto, to tell Abrams and Terrio that the character had simply missed his window.

  3. Confront the Chosen One ramifications head-on. Like it or not, the prequels gave cosmic, borderline-theological implications to Palpatine’s death. If he never actually died or was only briefly dead, if the Sith survived and continued planning in the shadows just as they did before The Phantom Menace, then the prophecy was wrong in some major way. Either Anakin was not the Chosen One, there was no Chosen One, or the balance it foretold was far less significant than its prophesized status would lead one to believe.

Now, this does not mean it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done, but it does mean the story has to take responsibility for the fallout of the decision – and no, giving Anakin one “bring back the balance” line doesn’t cut it. The idea that balance is never permanent and must be continually maintained is a good one, but is suggested so fleetingly that the line simply doesn’t suffice to account for the sheer scale of the retcon.

But it didn’t have to be that way. A differently-structured ST could have not only navigated this minefield, but done so in a way that enriched the PT rather than undermining it, by making the question of prophecy and the old Jedi Order’s reliance on it one of the new trilogy’s major themes. The groundwork for such a development was already laid in Revenge of the Sith, what with Yoda himself warning that the prophecy “misread, could have been.”

Have Luke and Rey discuss and debate whether the prophecy was correct, whether Anakin was the Chosen One after all, what “balance of the Force” even means. Have Anakin return as a Force spirit in a larger role to add his insight to the discussions. Hell, you could’ve even had Palpatine play on the heroes’ doubts by claiming to have created the prophecy to goad the Jedi into training the instrument of their own destruction. All of this could have given the ST some much-needed philosophical depth by diving into the question of predestination vs. free will, and brought things full circle by highlighting a failing of the old Jedi Order from which Rey and her eventual students could learn.

  1. Finally, when you have a character come back from the dead in a story that’s meant to be a true ending rather than another midway point, you have to make clear why he can’t just come back again. John’s amazing Force Ghost edit achieves this in an elegant way, but absolutely nothing in vanilla TROS does. There is nothing in the official film that would prevent future storytellers from revealing that Palpatine had another supply of clone bodies to escape into stashed on Korriban, Malachor, Vjun, Wayland, or some other Sith planet that hasn’t been made up yet. Hell, nothing in the film even rules out the possibility that Palpatine’s spirit is already lurking inside Rey!

I sympathize with the desire to bring Palpatine back. I enjoyed and accepted Dark Empire back in the day. Ian’s magnificence in the role was one of the things that had me desperately trying to convince myself that I liked TROS as I drove home from the theater. And I have come around to the conclusion that it could have been the right decision for a different version of the Sequel Trilogy. But he simply didn’t fit with the Episodes VII and VIII we got, and the Episode IX we got botched the execution on every level.

Post
#1430514
Topic
The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread
Time

By introducing Anakin and Padme as two young people with major formative experiences seemingly enabled by the weakness of the Old Republic (slavery allowed on Tatooine, the Senate’s refusal to stop Naboo’s invasion), The Phantom Menace actually provides what would have been the perfect setup to their relationship and eventual split…except the rest of the trilogy didn’t use it.

Instead of Padme being a fairly generic pacifist type, she and Anakin should both be politically hawkish and support Palpatine’s calls for a stronger executive power. (Hell, Padme & Palpatine were also from the same planet, and the latter was even introduced as an advisor to the former, but nothing is done with that connection other than one line in a single ROTS deleted scene.) This way, the two could bond not just over mutual attraction but also shared political convictions forged by the conflict that brought them together. Then in ROTS, Padme is objective and principled enough to recognize that Palpatine is going too far, whereas Anakin’s views remain clouded by his struggle with the dark side, the Jedi, etc. from the official movie.

Sadly, this reinterpretation couldn’t actually be done with the source material, but maybe it could be made easier to infer by cutting from AOTC Padme’s appeals to diplomacy, opposition to the Military Creation Act (a plot point that should probably go anyway to eliminate the coincidence of the Republic discovering a clone army made just for them at the EXACT MOMENT they’re debating whether to commission one), etc, along with perhaps some creative use of audio from other Natalie Portman roles. Sometimes cutting out obstacles to a particular interpretation is all you need to do to make something click.

Post
#1430506
Topic
Your ideal Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Time

Thinking smaller, the core elements of what we got could have made for a perfectly solid ST with a few tweaks. For instance…

EPISODE VII: A SHATTERED BALANCE

30 years after the Battle of Endor, the New Republic is established and a free galaxy has fallen into complacency. Leia Organa-Solo serves in the Galactic Senate, Han Solo adjusts to retirement as well as can be expected, and Luke Skywalker trains their son Ben along with a handful of students in the Jedi arts—with the help of Snoke, a surviving Jedi Master from the days of the Old Republic.

But when the deserting ex-stormtrooper Finn arrives to warn the Senate that an Imperial remnant calling itself the First Order is gathering strength in the Unknown Regions, Snoke—secretly a darksider in league with the First Order—reveals himself and accelerates his plans to retake the galaxy.

Responding to a distress call from the Jedi Temple, Han finds that Snoke has completed his seduction of Ben Solo, and in doing so decimated the Academy. The newly-christened Kylo Ren murders his father in a tense confrontation, and Chewbacca rescues the only two Jedi who haven’t been killed or captured—Luke and one student, a young orphan named Rey.

With Finn’s help, the grief-stricken heroes organize a plan of attack, infiltrating and destroying the First Order superweapon Starkiller Base…but not before it obliterates the New Republic’s capital. Leia assumes command of the New Republic’s surviving military forces, while Luke takes Rey to complete her training on the remote Jedi world of Ahch-To, just as Yoda had trained him on Dagobah decades before.

This would allow us to spend time with the heroes at peace and show a glimpse of the free galaxy they fought for in the OT. It would eliminate Han and Leia’s estrangement, give Luke a similar struggle with guilt without having to explain why he tapped out of the galaxy for years, introduce us to Ben Solo before things go to hell, and eliminate the controversy over Rey being skilled without Jedi training, all while preserving the good elements the ST gave us.

In particular, having Kylo’s turn, Han’s death (which, let’s face it, would probably be a Harrison Ford requirement no matter what), and the fall of Luke’s academy all happen simultaneously onscreen, as the immediate precursors to the trilogy’s central war, alleviates The Force Awakens’ implication that Luke, Han, and Leia’s lives all sucked before we see them again. Having characters meet tragic ends in the course of facing a new crisis is a lot easier to swallow than having them suffer losses, withdraw from their loved ones for years, regress to old habits, AND THEN meet tragic ends.

EPISODE VIII: THE LEGEND OF SKYWALKER

The broad strokes could be similar to The Last Jedi, especially the exploration on Luke’s mythic status (hence the new title). The above outline for A Shattered Balance leaves the exact circumstances of Kylo’s turn somewhat ambiguous, so there would still be room for a similar set of flashbacks as in the official TLJ. I don’t have strong feelings about whether Rey should be Luke’s daughter or remain a nobody, but this basic idea could work with either decision. Another possibility might be that Rey is the daughter of a darksider Luke was forced to kill years ago. [EDIT] I’d be fine with a version of the Canto Bight subplot pruned like Hal’s version, but for the sake of the trilogy as a whole perhaps it would be better if Finn and Rose’s mission was instead focused on finding allies to help what’s left of the New Republic regroup in the wake of the Starkiller disaster. [END EDIT]

EPISODE IX: POWER OF THE FORCE

😃 Maybe a little something like this:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/THE-RISE-OF-SKYWALKER-THE-TEAM-DALE-REWRITE-AVAILABLE-NOW/id/85493

Post
#1430492
Topic
Your ideal Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Time

My idea sequel trilogy would probably be something along the lines of the most recently-reported version of George’s ideas. Not necessarily the specifics of Maul surviving and bringing in Talon, but putting the challenges of postwar rebuilding front and center would have been perfect for making the trilogy a relevant part of a single story, making it feel more necessary and legitimate. The idea of a criminal underworld helmed by a darksider also would’ve made for a much more distinct threat than Empire 2.0 in the First Order.

Post
#1428913
Topic
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER: THE TEAM DALE REWRITE — AVAILABLE NOW
Time

We know that investing in the time to read a 200+ page document for a rewrite when you don’t even know whether it will satisfy your own vision of what Episode IX should have been is a lot to ask. So we’ve updated the main post with a plot summary beneath a spoiler tag, so those who want to know what they’re getting into – and don’t care about getting spoiled – will have the option of reviewing all our major creative decisions in a much quicker, more digestible way before deciding whether our rewrite is for them.

Post
#1428242
Topic
Unusual <strong>Sequel Trilogy</strong> Radical Redux Ideas Thread
Time

Has anyone experimented with any ways to fix (or at least mitigate) the fact that this trilogy ended with the Jedi being no more “returned” than they were at the end of Return of the Jedi?

It’s fun to imagine something crazy-ambitious, like filming new footage of Jedi students standing before Rey or something like that, but it seems to me the most realistic way of at least hinting at a New Jedi Order would be the following:

  1. end The Last Jedi on the Falcon in hyperspace; cut out the Broom Boy ending.

  2. replace The Rise of Skywalker’s Tatooine ending with the Broom Boy ending, which plays out as normal until Broom Boy walks outside…

  3. …where instead of looking up to the sky he finds Rey approaching him, with the implication being that she’s begun her search for students. This wouldn’t require any dialogue; just a couple new shots of Rey composited into the Canto Bight backgrounds, perhaps sold by original close-up footage of a Rey cosplayer’s arm stretching out to offer her hand.

I don’t know how everyone else here feels, but personally I could’ve tolerated TROS’s nonsense a LOT more if we had at least gotten a NJO when all was said and done…

Post
#1426236
Topic
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER: THE TEAM DALE REWRITE — AVAILABLE NOW
Time

Hi Testing,

We followed all the arguments, and if they had won us over we wouldn’t have stuck with this to completion. We would obviously prefer the ability to conclude Star Wars movie marathons with an actual movie that satisfied us. But we simply don’t like and don’t want the official TROS, and this is a project for people who feel the same way.

Fortunately, one of the great things about fanedits and fanfiction is that not everyone has to like the same things. For those who embrace the official TROS, there are plenty of more modest fanedits out there, plus the novelization rewrites/revisions that are doing some pretty cool things from what I’ve seen. The more options the merrier!

Post
#1426153
Topic
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER: THE TEAM DALE REWRITE — AVAILABLE NOW
Time

ORIGINAL POST, APRIL 26: I’ve been a longtime admirer of the talent and creativity on this forum, and have followed several TROS fanedit projects with interest. The improvements people have been able to make to the mess of a movie we got are simply astonishing.

Even so, I personally find the source material so unsatisfying in both what’s there and what’s missing that I cannot imagine any fanedit altering enough to become an acceptable version of how the Saga “really” ends.

So, in January 2020, a like-minded friend and I began writing our own script for a completely different Episode IX. Today, we are thrilled to finally announce STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER—THE TEAM DALE REWRITE, arriving on Star Wars Day 2021, May the Fourth. I realize we’re far from the first to take on such a project, but we’re proud of and pleased with what we’ve made, and are excited to share our particular vision with the world.

We have also assembled a simple teaser trailer to give a general sense of what we have in store. Being composed entirely of existing footage, it naturally isn’t a 1:1 depiction of actual scenes…but it’s closer than one might think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHBGQihBbQ

We hope you’ll find that our story features stronger roles for all the major characters, offers satisfying answers to the biggest questions of the Sequel Trilogy, thoughtfully uses elements from all three trilogies as well as both the Legends Expanded Universe and the Disney Canon, better distinguishes the First Order from the Empire as well as the FO-Resistance conflict from the Galactic Civil War, runs with the decisions of Episodes VII and VIII instead of retconning them (with one critical exception), and ends in a way that—we hope—changes this trilogy from just “things Disney says happened after Endor” to a genuine conclusion of a single, unified story.

In short, we believe we have come up with a more logical, consequential, and fulfilling conclusion to the Saga, one that better fits the spirit of the franchise as best we understand it.

This post will be updated with the direct link on May 4, the same day TeamDaleTROS.wordpress.com (which will host the document and serve as a blog for feedback and updates) goes live. We hope you enjoy it!

UPDATE 1, MAY 1: Here’s one more small tease for the weekend before the May 4th release – a visualization of our story’s opening text crawl:

https://youtu.be/EzKUzwUrS0s

UPDATE 2, MAY 4: Happy Star Wars Day! Our Episode IX rewrite can now be read online or downloaded as a PDF via the following link:

https://teamdaletros.wordpress.com/read-the-script/

As you’ll be able to tell right away, we chose to format it as a script, but included a lot of additional detail that wouldn’t necessarily be in a real film script, in order to make up for the lack of a real movie and the associated design/production work that would flesh out the visuals. As such, it’s a fair bit longer than a real film script would be, but still well below the page count of a novelization.

We’re happy to take any questions you might have as well as feedback, both positive and negative. All we ask is that, at least for the first thread page or so, readers be mindful of others who haven’t gotten as far by putting specific details or plot developments behind spoiler tags:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/How-do-I-do-this-on-the-OriginalTrilogy-com-some-info-and-answers-member-FAQs/id/60848/page/1#1208171

Thanks for your time and attention, and may the Force be with you!

UPDATE 3, MAY 10: We believe the idea way to experience a story is of course to dive in at the beginning, unspoiled. However, we also appreciate that alternatives to official stories such as fanedits and fanfiction are a special case. Many who disliked the official Episode IX (ourselves included) did so not just for its objective flaws, but also for not fitting their/our subjective preferences and not delivering what they/we personally wanted to see. So taking the time to read almost 200 pages of something that might not turn out to be what you’re looking for either is a lot to ask.

So we have prepared the following plot summary beneath the spoiler tag, which will give readers the option of reviewing all our major story decisions so you can decide whether our vision is for you before deciding whether to make the time commitment of reading the entire script:

SPOILERS

One year has passed since the Battle of Crait. The story of Luke Skywalker’s heroic sacrifice has inspired free worlds across the galaxy to resist the First Order, which is struggling both from the massive setback their fleet took with the loss of Snoke’s flagship, and from unrest among its high command due to the erratic leadership of its new Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren. What it had hoped would be a swift victory through intimidation is now a full civil war.

But the Resistance has suffered a loss of its own with the death of its leader, General Leia Organa, (whose health has been gradually failing ever since the First Order’s attack on the Raddus temporarily exposed her to the vacuum of space), a tragedy which has pushed now-Admiral Poe Dameron to embrace the responsibility of taking over as leader of the Resistance. Following Leia’s funeral on her mother’s homeworld of Naboo, Rey confides in Finn that her Jedi training has stalled due to increasing difficulty in connecting to the Force. She has suspicions as to the source of the block, but is not yet willing to admit them.

Aboard the First Order’s current flagship, the Super Star Destroyer Dominance, the Knights of Ren accompany their master to an audience with General Hux, who declares Kylo Ren unfit to lead and claims the throne for himself. To Ren’s shock, Hux reveals that not only has he obtained rare lizards called Ysalamiri, which protect him from Force attacks, but he has convinced the Knights to side with him—providing the muscle needed for his mutiny. Kylo escapes the flagship, but not before suffering grievous wounds. The newly-minted Supreme Leader Hux gives the Knights of Ren new and exotic lightsabers, touts their mastery of a “lost art” which will turn the tide of the war, and tasks their deadliest member, Vicrul, with hunting down Kylo.

On the gas giant Bespin, at the Resistance’s new Nimbus Base (a small colony platform entirely separate from Cloud City, and hidden from planetary scans by advanced cloaking technology), Rey continues her efforts to train in solitude, during which it is revealed that she has constructed a new lightsaber for herself, but is unable to repair the Skywalker lightsaber with her remaining resources. Lando Calrissian returns from a recruitment trip and explains that remaining worlds who have yet to join the Resistance remain on the sidelines partly out of a lack of interest in restoring the flawed New Republic, and partly out of a cynical desire to wait and see which side prevails.

Lando also relays alarming reports that the First Order’s remaining forces have somehow become able to demolish larger and more skilled military forces with ease. Rey recognizes the reports as matching the Jedi texts’ description of an ancient Force ability called Battle Meditation, through which powerful Force users can amplify the skill, morale, and coordination of entire armies to supernatural degrees while confusing and demoralizing the enemy into disarray.

Meanwhile, Finn and Rose Tico travel to the planet Batuu in response to a call from underworld contact Hondo Ohnaka, who claims to have obtained something of great interest to the Resistance. Hondo reveals that his men have taken custody of the injured, weakened Kylo Ren, who fled to the smuggler’s haven guided by memories of accompanying his father there as a child. Kept compliant by more Ysalamiri, Kylo claims to know the location of survivors from Luke Skywalker’s Jedi academy, which he offers to give the Resistance in exchange for an audience with Rey. Finn and Rose reluctantly agree.

Knight of Ren Kuruk leads a First Order invasion of Naboo, which quickly falls to a terrifying display of Battle Meditation in space combat. After the effortless victory, it is revealed that other Knights are leading similar assaults throughout the galaxy, including the planets Corellia and Kashyyyk.

Rey, Poe, and Chewbacca meet Finn, Rose, and the captive Kylo at a rendezvous point on the ocean planet Kef Bir, during which Kylo reveals the Jedi survivors are being held in carbonite in an old Imperial stronghold on the acidic planet Vjun. Kylo also confirms Rey’s worst fears: her early displays of Jedi proficiency stemmed from Snoke bridging her mind with Kylo’s, which had a side effect of opening her to Kylo’s training and experience – a resource she lost when she broke their connection after the Battle of Crait. Driven in part by a desire to find experienced Jedi who could be everything she’s come to doubt in herself, Rey takes Finn, Rose, Chewbacca, and BB-8 to Vjun, while Poe takes custody of Kylo and brings him back to Nimbus Base.

While in transit aboard the Millennium Falcon, the heroes discuss their plan: Rey and Finn will infiltrate Bast Prison disguised as stormtroopers with orders to transfer the Jedi prisoners before Kylo makes a play for them on his own. Finn assists Rey with some sparring exercises, which highlight both Rey’s frustrations and the two heroes’ growing feelings for each other.

Back at the Resistance base, Poe interrogates Kylo about the Knights of Ren, during which Poe feels but ultimately resists a temptation to execute Kylo himself. Their confrontation devolves into a shouting match over Ren’s grievances against the New Republic and motives for joining the First Order. Poe acknowledges the Republic’s failings but makes clear that the Resistance is about higher ideals than loyalty to a failed government, ideals that Kylo’s rationalizations cannot bury. Kylo concedes nothing, but there appear to be slight cracks in his façade.

On Vjun, Rey and Finn locate and retrieve the fourteen frozen Jedi without incident. But just as they reach a hangar and begin loading them onto a cargo speeder, they are confronted by Vicrul and a squad of elite purge troopers. An intense chase ensues, with the heroes’ speeder fighting off indigenous beasts called Grath hounds along the way, while Rose and Chewbacca pilot the Falcon alongside Resistance starfighters against the First Order’s air and ground forces.

Eventually the heroes’ speeder crashes. Rey puts up a valiant defense but is easily overpowered by Vicrul, who murders two of the frozen Jedi in an attempt to make Rey give up the location of Kylo and the Resistance. Rey breaks free by momentarily giving in to the dark side, but is brought to her senses by an injured Finn. The Falcon reaches them and the heroes manage to escape with the twelve remaining Jedi, though the ordeal has brought Rey to her lowest point.

Back at Nimbus Base, Finn is treated for his injuries while Rey reluctantly decides she has no choice but to work with Kylo, especially with the rescued Jedi’s health and odds of survival very much in doubt. Poe refuses to allow Kylo to be released, and with no clear sign of the First Order’s location or next move anyway, the issue appears to be tabled.

Meanwhile, Hux decides that the Resistance needs to be drawn out of hiding so it can be destroyed before it has a chance to revive the Jedi and cancel out the First Order’s Battle Meditation advantage. So he moves the fleet to the peaceful, Force-strong planet Aquilae, with a terrible plan: using decades-old superweapons called climate disruption arrays to torture the populace so their pain will echo in the Force, calling out to Rey and Kylo.

The planet’s devastation has its desired effect. Poe is still unwilling to release Kylo, until the dark warrior reveals that Hux’s plan has (apparently) had the side effect of killing all the Ysalamiri reinforcing his cell, meaning he could have escaped or killed the heroes but chose not to. Kylo makes an additional show of good faith by using the Force to heal Finn’s wounds. Poe reluctantly admits they have no other choice, and the Resistance forms a plan: commando and sabotage teams will infiltrate the Dominance and clear Rey and Kylo a path to confront the Knights of Ren, distracting them from using Battle Meditation so the Resistance fleet can move in and attack.

In transit aboard the Falcon, Luke Skywalker appears to Rey to offer words of encouragement. He tells her that while the quick refinement of her skills may have come from Kylo, her innate strength and Force potential were always hers alone. Luke also assures Rey that she is not simply repeating Kylo’s mistakes by telling her the story of how Snoke, a Jedi Master of the Old Republic who (unbeknownst to Luke at the time) had turned to the dark side after surviving Order 66, got his hooks in Ben Solo at an early age. Luke discovered the truth and drove Snoke out of his training temple, but the seeds of mistrust he had already planted grew for years, were later exacerbated by Ben’s discovery that his parents had lied to him about his relation to Darth Vader, and ultimately exploded that fateful night Luke looked into his nephew’s mind. Luke helps Rey regain a measure of trust in herself and reach an understanding that Kylo is at a crossroads, and that the outcome of this mission could cement his path in either direction.

Kylo is visited by his “Uncle Lando,” who gives him an ornate blaster pistol he had kept as a gift for the boy years ago, and offers him unconditional love in spite of all he’s done. After Lando leaves, Anakin Skywalker appears before Kylo, imploring his grandson to learn from his example and not repeat his failures as Darth Vader. Kylo vents his cynicism and resentment, but Anakin tells him the mere fact that they’ve finally connected is a sign that Kylo’s conflicted mind is opening up. Anakin leaves the troubled young man with some final words of wisdom: to find the string he needs to make the right choice in the people around him. After the experience, Rey comes to Kylo’s quarters and offers him her own show of faith: his grandfather’s lightsaber, and the chance to repair it with parts from his shattered crossguard saber.

Rey and Kylo hijack a First Order supply ship they’ll use to board the Dominance, and Lando and Chewbacca rejoin the Resistance fleet in the Falcon. The Jedi duo boards at the same time six Resistance strike teams board in stolen First Order troop landers. The heroes fight their way through the ship. Five teams attack various strategic targets while the team led by Finn and Rose works their way toward the ship’s security center. Rey and Kylo are eventually confronted by Knights of Ren Vicrul and Ap’lek, who separate the duo to face them one-on-one, in hopes of breaking the Force bond from which Rey and Kylo both draw strength. They struggle against the aggression and apparent superiority of their respective Knights, but eventually prevail—Rey by centering herself in the light, Kylo by drawing further on the dark.

The Resistance commandos make good progress, but are eventually overwhelmed by purge trooper squads. All alone, Finn and Rose find themselves cornered by a squad of stormtroopers, and all seems lost until Finn, acting on instinct, tries appealing to the consciences of the troopers buried beneath intensive mental conditioning, drawing on his own experiences as a former stormtrooper—as well as his dawning Force-sensitivity. The Force manages to break through three of the troopers’ conditioning, and they turn on the other five to save Finn and Rose, then offer their aid. Finn is shaken by this new revelation about himself.

Rey and Kylo reunite, Finn and Rose take over the security center, and the former tell the latter to signal the fleet as they make their final approach to Hux’s throne room. But as Resistance fighters begin their attack, the Jedi find themselves trapped inside energy shields backed by Force-dampening Ysalamiri, helpless to watch as the four remaining Knights of Ren are free to use Battle Meditation to bolster the First Order’s forces. The Resistance fleet is forced to fall back, unable to do anything but defend themselves out of range while praying for a miracle.

As Hux gloats, Rey has an epiphany, and through their bond coordinates with Kylo to reach out and calm the Ysalamiri’s fear, getting them to voluntarily stop blocking the Force. The Jedi break free and engage the Knights of Ren in a furious two-on-four lightsaber brawl. Finn senses this reversal of fortune and informs Poe, who signals a second wave of Resistance ships to join the battle. These reinforcements include a rich variety of allies from all corners of the galaxy, friends old and new, veterans of conflicts past and present, all coming together in an epic space battle.

The heroes in the security center discover that purge troopers are closing in on their location. The three awakened stormtroopers provide Finn and Rose with an escape route, offering to stay behind to buy them time and possibly sabotage the Dominance’s main reactor. The heroes don’t want to abandon their new friends, but the troopers insist they want Finn to survive to help free more of their brothers and sisters throughout the galaxy.

The Resistance destroys the disruption arrays and the Jedi destroy the Knights of Ren, but with Hux seemingly at their mercy Kylo feels the temptation to take his revenge rising again—temptation that explodes into rage when it’s revealed that Hux was simply projecting himself into the chamber via a hologram, and is actually on the verge of escape. Falling deeper into the dark side, Kylo resolves to kill him while Rey gives chase.

A purge unit reaches the security center, discovers the awakened troopers’ change of allegiance, and kills them, but not before they trigger an overload in the main reactor. Finn senses their deaths, and fears for Rey, but Rose convinces him to press on and make their way off the ship.

Kylo corners Hux in an escape pod bay, but before he can murder the helpless villain Rey intervenes, engaging him in a reluctant lightsaber duel while trying to appeal to his conscience. Kylo’s conflict eventually resurfaces, strengthened by a loving last-minute appeal from one more Jedi spirit: his mother Leia. Kylo’s good side seems to come closer to surfacing than ever before, but his warring emotions ultimately overwhelm him, and he lashes out in a Force Repulse that knocks Rey unconscious.

Safely back at the fleet, Finn resumes desperately trying to contact Rey, who regains consciousness and finds that Kylo is gone—and has both spared Hux’s life and left the Skywalker lightsaber behind. Hopeful that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo once more, Rey drags the Supreme Leader into an escape pod and ejects from the Dominance just before it explodes, sparking a chain reaction that destroys the First Order fleet in a brilliant pyrotechnic display.

The heroes reunite and celebrate their victory, and Rey reunites with Finn, culminating in a long-overdue kiss. On the surface of Aquilae, Lando and Chewbacca spearhead search-and-rescue efforts for survivors of the First Order’s attack. In the following weeks, the Resistance and its allies—including contingents of former stormtroopers awakened by Finn—help planets including Naboo, Corellia, and Kashyyyk cast off First Order occupations.

Several months later, Lando, Finn, and Chewbacca prepare to depart Batuu aboard the Falcon. They allude to a grand new opportunity awaiting Finn and discuss Lando’s work helping establish a new Senate, as well as his hopes that a new Galactic Alliance will be more successful at earning the trust of worlds burned by the New Republic. Finn also offers the two his sympathies for the apparent loss of Ben, but Lando expresses faith that they’ll see him again.

In a remote settlement on the jungle moon of Yavin IV, a humble recluse is revealed to be Ben Solo, apparently content to live out his days in isolated anonymity. He is visited by his Uncle Luke, who relays his parents’ love and pride in him, and his confidence that Ben is on the path to redemption. Luke disappears, and Ben reflects on an image of Han and Leia with newfound hope.

The Falcon drops Finn off on the planet Jedha, where he makes his way to the newly-constructed Skywalker Temple. Rey greets him with a kiss and guides him to the main hall, where the Jedi survivors and additional students now number two dozen. Rey takes her place as one of four Jedi teachers, Finn begins his Jedi path by joining the class, and the spirits of Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jinn look on in approval as the New Jedi Order—having learned from the mistakes of the past and survived efforts to snuff it out in its infancy—formally convenes with a lightsaber salute, dedicating themselves to the restoration of peace and justice in the galaxy.

Post
#1419298
Topic
A Batman v Superman Radical Redux Ideas Thread
Time

DISCLAIMER: I have no video editing skills, and am not working on a specific fanedit. This thread is simply meant to share some editing ideas (which anyone is free to attempt if they so choose), as well as to provide a general discussion space to inspire further brainstorming. (I did not find a general BvS editing thread while searching, so if one already exists and I somehow missed it, I apologize.)

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the second most disappointing film I’ve ever seen (the first being The Rise of Skywalker). Despite liking several of its individual elements, for years I’ve written it off as irredeemable.

But I’ve liked most of the rest of the DCEU, I hate wasting the good in bad movies, and being pleasantly surprised by the Snyder Cut of Justice League inspired me to take another look at BvS with fresh eyes, and I hit upon a way to change my single biggest objection to the film: that for its first two hours, Batman’s entire motivation is to murder another hero for no other reason than that he might go bad someday.

In retrospect this seems fairly simple to do, but none of the existing fanedits I’m aware of do it (please correct me if I’m wrong), so I wanted to share it here.

Essentially, I believe it is possible to edit the first half of the film so that, while the destruction in Metropolis left Bruce Wayne deeply wary of Superman’s potential, he actually doesn’t want to kill him, but instead he simply wants to acquire Kryptonite as a contingency if Superman ever goes bad. This would be achieved as follows:

  • First, when he’s debating Alfred, cut out “you want to go to war,” "that son of a bitch brought the war to us two years ago,” and “we have to destroy him.”

  • Second, during that conversation, change “if we believe there’s even a one-percent chance that he is our enemy we have to take it as an absolute certainty” to “if we believe there’s even a one-percent chance he is our enemy…we have to be ready" (“ready” line can be taken from Justice League).

  • Third, cut out the Batmobile chase entirely. It’s unnecessary, but more importantly, the collateral damage Batman leaves in his wake is so over-the-top that it makes him a complete hypocrite. Plus, calmly tagging the truck with a tracker then stealing the Kryptonite from its destination later is better for characterizing Batman as a strategist planning ahead.

Once these changes are in place, the Knightmare sequence/the Flash’s warning from the future – “You were right about him! You were always right about him! Fear him!” – becomes a turning point so real, so harrowing that it radicalizes Bruce. As far as Bruce is concerned, he’s just been shown that the danger isn’t theoretical anymore, that Superman will go bad in the near future, and so he has to be stopped now. (We the audience know that Barry went back too early and that Bruce is therefore misinterpreting the vision, but that only adds to the tragedy.) This can be further sold by sparingly having Barry’s voice echo in certain parts of the vision itself, which would also more clearly suggest that Barry is showing Bruce the future (instead of Bruce having Bat-clairvoyance).

There are tons of other changes I would like to see made to BvS, especially to the dreary, jaded characterization of Superman, “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?” and Martha Kent’s awful “you don’t owe this world a thing” advice. But while I may share more ideas later, the above is the one I really wanted to toss out to the community.